2017 Data Release Notes

The Bureau of Economics (BEA) recently developed a state-level personal consumption expenditures (PCE) data set. The state-level data do not have the same level of commodity detail as the national-level data and are one year lagged relative to the national-level-data (and IMPLAN gdata); therefore, the national-level data are used to split the state-level expenditure categories into more detailed expenditure categories and to project the state-level data to the current IMPLAN data year. Therefore, for each state, the values for the detailed expenditure categories (which are estimated using national ratios of each detailed expenditure as a proportion of its parent expenditure category) will sum to the state’s value for the parent category, thereby incorporating state-level information while retaining the necessary detail. The states’ values for each expenditure category are then forced to sum to the national value for that expenditure category, effectively projecting the state-level data to the current data year. Thus, we still rely heavily on the national-level data, while incorporating some state-level information.

While this change allows us to adhere more closely to state-level parent sector values (and state-level overall total values) from the BEA, which confers regional specificity, it is possible that in some cases the difference among states in parent category values could be due to just a few of the many detailed categories that make up that parent category rather than being a proportional difference among all of them, in which case using the national ratios to split the parent category value among the detailed categories will result in skewed values for the detailed categories. Thus, there could be a trade-off in some cases – the gain of a better sum of detailed categories while introducing inferior estimates of some individual detailed categories.

Incorporation of recent NIPA revisions:

In July 2018, the BEA released the initial results of the 15th comprehensive, or benchmark, update of the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs), which occurs roughly every 5 years. Details can be found here: https://apps.bea.gov/scb/2018/04-april/0418-preview-2018-comprehensive-nipa-update.htm. These revisions have been incorporated into the 2017 IMPLAN data, so there may be some noticeable changes from previous years’ data sets. For example, the reclassification of payments by the Federal Reserve banks to the U.S. government as dividend payments rather than as tax payments will reduce the Federal government’s tax receipts but will increase its dividend receipts, both of which will be reflected in the IMPLAN SAM and will affect the tax impact report. Interest payments by State and Local governments have been revised upward, reflecting the higher imputed interest on plans’ claims on employers, which will be reflected in the IMPLAN SAM. In addition, the change in measurement of government benefit pension plans results in reduced government expense on labor, which has the effect of increasing government surplus.

Incorporation of new NAICS scheme:

These changes affect IMPLAN’s (Covered Employment and Wages) CEW data product, as well as growth rates based on CEW data, which are used to project some lagged raw data elements to the current IMPLAN data year. For more details, please see the Census Bureau’s NAICS website: https://www.census.gov/eos/www/naics/.